Friday – 3rd Week of Easter

Reading – Acts 9:1-20

Leadership Skills?

Church of Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem

Pardon me for asking but haven’t you ever wondered about God’s ability to choose leaders??  I mean, think about it, Moses had a speech impediment and God chose him to negotiate with Pharaoh over the release of the Hebrews.  Abraham was well into his ‘senior’ years when God called him to make a covenant.  David was the baby of the family and yet he was a war hero and was anointed king.   Countless prophets in the Old Testament were at best ‘reluctant’.  Peter denied Him 3 times!  Thomas doubted Him!  And the list goes on and on.

And then we come to Saul.  While he was highly educated and even a Roman citizen, his job description was to hunt down, arrest and/or execute Christians!  You can’t be any clearer than what we hear in today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles.  Saul is breathing murderous threats against the disciples!  Even when God tells him to heal Saul of his blindness, Ananias second-guesses God!  You can almost hear it in his response – Seriously?  Are you kidding me?

I wonder how often we second- guess God!  Who me?  You want me?  I’m nobody, nothing special and I know I will fail!  Why can’t you pick someone else?  I’m not perfect and definitely not the best person for the job!  And yet how many times have we second-guessed ourselves, believing we aren’t up to the task? 

God sees us not merely as we are, warts and all.  He also sees in each of us such great potential, such promise!  He sees all that we can become!  And in the process, He even gives us food for journey – His own body and blood!  Consider this one line from Acts: 

“he regained his sight. He got up and was baptized, and when he had eaten, he recovered his strength.
 He stayed some days with the disciples in Damascus, and he began at once to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God.”

He nourishes not only our bodies, but our souls. And Jesus makes quite plain in today’s Gospel when He preaches in the synagogue at Capernaum:

“Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood has eternal life,
and I will raise him on the last day. For my Flesh is true food, and my Blood is true drink.”

We are all called to the mission!  We are all given food sufficient for the journey!  And God reminds us!  Don’t second-guess yourself!  You got this!  I got this!

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